Frank Lloyd Wright designed and constructed Taliesin West as his winter home and studio from 1937 until his death in 1959. As at Taliesin, Wright trained hundreds of young students at Taliesin West through his Fellowship program transforming each place into an incubator where he continuously experimented and refined his ideas of organic architecture and community living and learning.
Wright used his desert campus to experiment with form and materials in novel ways always seeking cultural and environmental relevance. Rather than sealing himself off from the desert, Wright embraced and prioritized forms and materials that promoted the seamless integration of building and nature. Local stone, wood, and canvas were his primary materials but in Wright’s hands, the materials were used to produce new organic forms that grounded the buildings to the landscape while recalling the indigenous monumental platform temple masonry and courtyard spaces of ancient America. Included in the UNESCO World Heritage designation of the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, Taliesin West ‘demonstrate[s] the primary importance of the landscape to the design of a modern building, providing an original response to a harsh desert site.” Taliesin West was Wright’s ‘experiment in the desert’, his 20-year exploration of contextual temporality in modern architecture.
Following on the success of the 2024 Capstone Studio at Taliesin West, this year’s seminar proposes to continue in depth examination of the Kiva-Bridge-Water Tower complex. Located at the heart of the original campus, the complex represents the intersection of architectural forms and functions while framing critical viewsheds to the surrounding landscape and mountains. It also symbolically brings together the essential Aristotelian elements of earth, air, fire, and water with additional references to native Puebloan architecture and communal gathering.
Students will investigate the design intent and evolution of the complex through using archival and physical building evidence, prepare a set of measured drawings and 3D models to analyze construction and material conditions, and make recommendations for needed repairs and longer-term preservation and reuse. The information will be gathered into a Historic Structure Report, a standard tool for assembling all relevant information about historic properties in preparation for future interventions. Guest lectures will include talks from professional staff of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Taliesin Institute with field trips to relevant sites in the area including Paolo Soleri’s Cosanti, Arcosanti, and other projects by Wright and Taliesin Associated Architects. The studio will be of particular relevance for students pursuing concentrations in conservation, preservation design, and public history.
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